Three Companies Announce the Close of FCPA Investigations

During the week of July 24, 2017, three different companies announced the closure of DOJ and/or SEC FCPA investigations: IBM, Net 1 UEPS Technologies, Inc. (“Net 1”), and Newmont Mining.

In a Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on July 25, 2017, IBM disclosed that the DOJ and SEC had each informed the company in June 2017 of the closure of their respective investigations into “alleged illegal activity by a former IBM Poland employee in connection with sales to the Polish government.” The company initially informed the SEC in 2012 that the Polish Central Anti-Corruption Bureau was looking into the matter, and the DOJ followed up with its own investigation in April of 2013. The DOJ expanded the investigation from Poland to Argentina, Bangladesh, and Ukraine. The 2012 issues came on the heels of a 2011 settlement in which IBM paid the SEC $10 million to settle separate FCPA allegations for alleged cash payments to Chinese and Korean officials.

South African alternative payment systems provider Net 1 made a similar announcement on July 27, stating that the DOJ had written a letter to the company closing its investigation of alleged FCPA and disclosure violations. According to the announcement, the DOJ, along with the SEC and South African authorities, began looking into a 2012 contract award process involving a Net 1 subsidiary, Cash Paymaster Services Proprietary Limited, after an unsuccessful bidder for the same contract “refer[ed] unsubstantiated South African press articles to the DOJ.” The SEC was the first to bow out of the investigation, closing its inquiry through a letter in 2015, followed six months later by the South African government. Net 1 is traded on NASDAQ’s Global Select Market, providing a jurisdictional hook into a case otherwise about payments made by a South African company in South Africa to South African citizens who were South African government employees. Our additional coverage of this matter can be viewed here.

In a Form 10-Q filed on July 25, 2017, Newmont Mining also announced the end of a DOJ investigation into alleged violations of the FCPA “relating to certain business activities of [Newmont Mining] and its affiliates and contractors in countries outside the U.S.” According to the announcement, the Colorado company had already received a similar declination from the SEC earlier this year. Our additional coverage of this matter can be viewed here.

The DOJ simultaneously reportedly confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that the agency was still actively enforcing the FCPA. The Journal cited an anonymous source at the DOJ for assurances that “though there haven’t been any new corporate FCPA cases since mid-January, there is no letup in U.S. enforcement efforts.”